About Us

EVERY BEAUTIFUL PIECE DESERVES TO BE WORN

PRE-LOVED TREASURES,
SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW RETAIL

Yesterday, the elite auction houses of the world had laid claim on all that is rarefied and stunning. Today, we’re re-envisioning a more accessible, enjoyable, and personal way to buy & sell jewelry.

BORN TREASURE HUNTERS.

OUR STORY

Gleem’s founder, Nikki Lawrence, was always a treasure hunter, but it took her some time to see the bigger picture. As a child, she delighted in scavenger hunts; in high school it was NYC thrift shops, in college New England flea markets, and in graduate school, for better or worse, eBay. In her twenties, she explored the hidden nooks and corners of Paris, Bombay, and even Savannah, Georgia, where her friends and family would often ask her help in finding those special little somethings. And by her thirties, she had graduated to the occasional auction or private estate sale.

But the demands of career and reality increasingly infringed upon this lifestyle. The hunt required time and patience that life would seldom afford. And while Nikki still found scraps of time here and there for the sheer indulgence, she came to realize that 1) this time would grow increasingly scarce; 2) not everyone shared her zeal for sifting through the muck; 3) there were literally trillions of dollars worth of beautiful jewelry sitting unworn and unappreciated; and that the Industry was desperately in need of a professional sifter.

The hunt requires time and patience that life seldom affords.

That’s where we come in.

There have always been independent jewelry collectors and dealers, but no one was systematically creating an exhibition or trusted marketplace accessible to the wider world. So, having learned a thing or two about eCommerce from stints working for some of Silicon Alley’s greats, Nikki decided to bring together her worlds.

Gleem was born of these two basic ideas -- that the best jewelry should be shared with the world, and that that sharing requires a trusted intermediary to enable buying, selling, discovering and obsessing over it.

GLEEM & CO’S

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

  • There’s value in investing in timeless elegance.

    With the rise of fast fashion, it’s sometimes funny to think of wardrobe staples that could last you 20 years (heck, forever!), but let’s face it—we all mix and match high and low. For every throw-away tank top, there’s also that bag that’s lived 1000 days and 1000 nights.

    And through the years, as we start to learn what defines our personal style, we get more excited about treating ourselves to that special gift that might not be the most “reasonable” item on your wishlist, but the one that will make you walk a little taller or smile a little brighter, not just for one spin around the dance floor, but every time you put it on.

    It’s the piece you can wear to work, to the pool, or to a cocktail party, what have you. The understated accent that comes to define a personal era, that little flourish that’s gotten you more compliments than you can remember…these are the treasures of our wardrobes that we want to last, to live with, and to love.

  • There’s a major part of personal elegance missing from the online fashion landscape.

    That’s jewelry! Fine jewelry; designer jewelry; one-of-a-kind jewelry. It’s not just passed down between generations; it’s not just something he picked out and gifted—it’s something as personal as it gets. So it should also reflect your personal style. Gleem is here to help.

    We do our utmost to find the best pieces from jewelry boxes and fine designers from around the world, and we’ll bring fashion’s top editors to help us all re-imagine their styling possibilities. This isn’t about your great aunt’s locket (although that can be great too!). It’s about the jewelry of now; the pieces you choose all yourself...

    Let’s bring jewelry back to fashion, and fashion back to jewelry.

  • Jewelry is as practical as it gets.

    We get it- we all lead busy lives. Accessorizing can be that thing that puts your look over the edge, but it can also take more thought than we have time for any given morning or evening. All the more reason to focus on those few special pieces. Ever notice that some of the most elegant women in the world know how to keep it simple? 

    Focus on the hair, or the bag, or the shoes, or the jewelry… don’t try to make it all shout at once. So here’s our tip: when you’re too tired to primp the hair and craving comfort over body contouring, keep the beauty and wardrobe simple and just add a touch of bling. The right necklace can make a t-shirt and jeans sensational.

    And the perfect earrings will transform a sweater and leggings into smashing. Invest once in the few key pieces of gleam you need and everyday style can be a sinch…or at least a hell of a lot faster and more comfortable. Can we get an amen?

  • Transparency is the name of the game.

    People tend not to favor department stores for their fine jewelry. They don’t go to the everything store because jewelry isn’t a sweater or a gadget. It’s something that will hold its value over time, provided you buy it with the right information in hand. Some of us trust in personal jewelers, but not everyone has one.

    We at Gleem believe that getting the full story, and making a smart decision when it comes to buying jewelry really should be a given. But appraisals are subjective. So unless you’re buying a loose diamond that is GIA certified, the appraised value is largely determined by the nuances of the market. You therefore want an appraiser who knows the market backwards and forwards, someone who’s literally seen thousands of pieces, to be the one evaluating your piece.

    That’s why Gleem-affiliated appraisers are as good as they come. If you trust a retailer and the retail price is your gauge, you may very well have a beautiful piece of jewelry, but you’ll never recover that face value, forget about getting a return on investment. That’s why everything listed on Gleem is priced significantly below retail.

    Every piece is vetted, valued and listed in the same consistent way. That’s how you know exactly what you’re getting, and can rest assured that you’re also getting a deal, for real.

  • Every one of us deserves a taste of luxury.

    We wanted to make buying and selling jewelry easier, more enjoyable, and more personal. It’s what you deserve, and we genuinely mean that. So we’re reclaiming the world of jewelry from the extremes of yesterday and are re-envisioning a new, more accessible place for it to be traded.

    Yesterday, we let these spectacular baubles spend short eternities in safe deposit boxes. Yesterday, the elite auction houses of the world had laid claim on all that is rarefied and stunning. Yesterday, to get a “steal” you literally had to risk your shirt, or at least your wallet, placing bets on offers from brokers, dealers and anonymous online sellers.

    Gleem believes that no piece of jewelry is beautiful when it lives in a vault; beautiful jewelry should be seen and worn. We also believe that the most special pieces don’t always need to fetch millions of dollars in order to claim the spotlight. And lastly, we believe there needs to be a fair and style-savvy mediator in all this…and that’s why we’re here doing this for you.

WE SEE A BIGGER PICTURE.

Meet Our Team

The entire team at Gleem & Co is composed of people who see a bigger picture. We are industry veterans who have born witness to incumbents shielding their eyes from the light, treating the internet like a storm to be weathered. We are finance experts who have reclaimed our careers out of a desire to sell things of tangible value and for fair prices. We are designers and technologists who want to merge 3-D brilliance with 2-D innovation and beauty. For each and every one of us, this is more than just work, more than just jewelry. It’s about doing something fundamentally different in one of the oldest trades in the word. It’s long overdue. It’s exciting. We love that you’ve joined us for the journey. The entire team at Gleem & Co is composed of people who see a bigger picture. We are industry veterans who have born witness to incumbents shielding their eyes from the light, treating the internet like a storm to be weathered. We are finance experts who have reclaimed our careers out of a desire to sell things of tangible value and for fair prices. We are designers and technologists who want to merge 3-D brilliance with 2-D innovation and beauty. For each and every one of us, this is more than just work, more than just jewelry. It’s about doing something fundamentally different in one of the oldest trades in the word. It’s long overdue. It’s exciting. We love that you’ve joined us for the journey.

Nikki Lawrence
FOUNDER AND CEO

A lover of all things exceptionally designed, crafted & preserved, as well as a proven leader in building and shaping eCommerce launches, Nikki saw the founding of Gleem as something of a personal duty to fellow denizens of style. Prior to Gleem, Nikki led new business launches at Gilt Groupe and, before that, was a senior member of the launch team for Soap.com, which was acquired by Amazon in its first full year of operations. She is an ever indebted alumnus of Riverdale Country School, Brown University and Harvard Business School. When not sifting through baubles for Gleem, Nikki can be found sifting through still more buried treasures at NYC’s flea markets and shows, or else trying to get her dachshund Julius to leave her side at the Madison Square Park dog run.

David Schwartz
APPRIASALS

David comes to Gleem from Harry Winston, where he spent the last decade as the brand’s VP of Merchandising, overseeing Product Development & Design, Manufacturing and Retail. Prior to Winston, he first started his jewelry career at Tiffany’s, where, over 10 years, he worked his way from Assistant Buyer to Director of Jewelry Merchandising, Manufacturing, and Product Development. He then went on to Lazare Kaplan International, the only diamond manufacturing specialist to be publicly listed on a US stock exchange (Ticker symbol: LKI), where he spent another decade as Global Director of Jewelry. David holds gemological certificates in Diamonds, Pearls and Colored Stones from The Gemological Institute of America, or GIA. He loves finding pieces he designed in our appraisal batches, but is extra hard on them with valuations.

Sal Magnone
TECHNOLOGY

A serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of CxO experience, Sal has successfully co-founded and advised numerous consumer tech companies. As CEO of Door3, Sal worked with Christie’s auction house for nearly 2 years on a complete technology and strategy revamp related to their Global Transformation and Innovation initiative. His technology experience is primarily in big and fast data systems, supercomputing, analytics, and low latency applications. He also has had twelve years’ experience in the US Military as a US Army Field Artillery Officer and previously as an enlisted artilleryman. Sal is married with two children. He enjoys beating obstacle courses. When he is not in front of one his many computers or with his family he can often be found climbing, on an orienteering course, or rucking to relax.